Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Mark10:51 (NRSV) Amidst the headlong welter of events in Mark’s Gospel, the healing of Bartimaeus at the end of Jesus’ amazing tour southward through Galilee gets our attention in…

Once, in a time long past but remembered in stories and brought to mind by bits of pottery dug up from mounds of earth that experts say were once towns, there lived a servant. This servant, or so he proclaimed himself, had no visible master. This peculiarity disturbed many people who came in contact with…

In the Philadelphia Museum of Art there’s a striking painting by Russian Marc Chagall. As Chagall’s often complexly allergorical or symbolic paintings go, it’s very simple. It has a large white figure of a man, several smaller white figures of houses and a church, and two words in Russian on a black background. The striking…

This doesn’t seem to be a good day for anyone in any of the three scripture lessons we read today. Moses is mad at the Israelites. And what a wonderful description we’re given of Moses! Imagine him standing before God with his hands on his hips and probably with a huge headache. “Why do you…

Note: The reader may wish to omit the first three paragraphs in brackets depending on the context and the congregation. The sermon may begin at paragraph four and still retain its impact. [“Before Rep was even a month old, at the beginning of each feeding, Margaret would gently pinch his cheek and say, ‘Now make…